The personal blog of Reyn Bowman, a Durham NC resident, 40-year veteran of community-destination marketing and still an explorer in community sense-of-place. Opinions expressed here are those of the author.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

A Recovery For Penn’s Woods

As I drove recently for the first time up through central and northeast Pennsylvania, from near Gettysburg up past the Great Bend, I wasn’t prepared for how beautiful it is nor how unusual its mountains are.

One near Frackville offered a bit of “energy” irony with a row of sustainable energy windmills along its top surrounding what looked like a fossil fuel fracking tower (the town’s name pre-dates that technology.)

It would have looked much different a 111 years ago as President Theodore Roosevelt cut across the path I took, as he rode the train in 1901 carrying the body of the just-assassinated President McKinley from Buffalo NY back to Washington, DC.

Were Roosevelt not already an ardent conservationist, that sobering trip may have become his epiphany. Thanks in part to his inspiration the state literally named Penn’s Woods would be much different today.

Prior to road trips I’ve taken over the last couple of years, my only impressions of Pennsylvania were limited to flying into Pittsburgh and Philadelphia on business trips .

Several of my ancestors spent their first years as Americans in that state, including those with names such as Arbuckle, Buzby, Bowman, Evans, Harper, Longworthy, Livezey, Messersmith and McCrory, so the trip this summer definitely will not have been my last.